A number of situations exist in which the use of conventional plates and glasses is difficult. For example, at parties, picnics, and other social gatherings, guests are often obligated to stand or walk about while eating and drinking. Inevitably, they are forced to hold their plate in one hand and their glass in the other. This does not leave free a hand with which to eat. Therefore, the guest must first seek out a resting place for at least the glass. Not only is this inconvenient, but the availability of suitable resting places is frequently quite limited at a social gathering. Furthermore, a guest may be unable to subsequently identify his drink and may recover another's drink by mistake. It is also frequently difficult to carry a separate plate and glass through a buffet line or when returning to one's seat at a sporting event or movie theater.
Several different assemblies for eliminating the need to use both hands to carry a plate and a glass have been proposed. One such assembly is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,240,020 issued Apr. 29, 1941 to Raiser. That assembly includes a plate having a central aperture for a cup and a hollow handle which extends downwardly from the cup-receiving receptacle. Although this device permits one to carry both the plate and cup with one hand, the cup is not actually attached to the plate and is thus easily dislodged or overturned. Furthermore, liquid can readily slosh over the open top of the cup and onto the food. Still further, the food on the plate can easily come into contact with and foul the exterior of the drinking cup; and food may slosh through the opening in the plate and pass through the hollow handle onto an underlying table or lap.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,920,804 issued Jan. 12, 1960 to Minton discloses a somewhat similar assembly in which a hollow sleeve forms a receptacle for a glass. This sleeve is joined to a plate component by a bead which releasably engages a flange on the plate. U.S. Pat. No. 211,532 issued Jun. 25, 1968, to Ashton discloses a serving tray having an overall configuration very similar to that of Minton. U.S. Pat. No. 3,955,672 issued May 11, 1976, to Brundage discloses another plate having a hole in which an open cup is set. In this case, the plate has a channel for balancing the plate on the user's forearm while he grasps the lower end of the cup.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,461,396 issued Jul. 24, 1984, to Harper discloses a plate having a recess for the lower end of a glass in its upper surface. The user's thumb protrudes upwardly through a hole in the plate and presses against the base of the glass to retain it in the recess. This arrangement shares disadvantages with the devices disclosed in the patents cited above. Since the glass is not attached to the plate, momentary relief of the thumb pressure may allow the glass to become dislodged; the drink can easily slosh out of the glass and onto the food; the food can slosh through the hole in the plate; and the food contained on the plate can easily get on the outside of the glass.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,688,992 issued Oct. 23, 1928, to Smith discloses a cup and saucer combination in which the saucer may either support or cover the cup without sliding about. However, the cup and saucer are not attached to each other. U.S. Pat. No. 2,565,912 issued Aug. 28, 1951, to Davis discloses a watercolor paint set in which the palette has a center portion that rests in the mouth of a water container. As the components of these units are not attached to each other, the units have the same disadvantages as Minton's and those of similar character.
The foregoing and other problems appurtenant to the patented arrangements are resolved by the novel plate-and-glass assemblies disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,058,737 issued Oct. 22, 1991 to Patterson et al. These assemblies are made up of: (a) a plate with a generally horizontal upper surface for supporting food, a lower surface, and a peripheral rim; (b) at least one glass for holding a drink, the glass having an open upper end which forms a mouth; and (c) cooperating connector components for so detachably securing the mouth of the glass to the lower surface of the plate that the mouth of the glass is covered by the plate and the glass is positioned in an upright orientation when the plate is positioned to support food. In the patented, Patterson et al. plate-and-glass assemblies, the plate-associated connector component--herein designated a "holder" or "glass holder"--is an integral part of the plate with which it is associated.
It was subsequently found (see related application Ser. No. 07/832,436) that an integrally formed glass holder is not required and that one can instead often employ to advantage a holder fabricated as a separate component and subsequently attached to a plate as with an appropriate adhesive, by thermal or ultrasonic welding, or by any other technique appropriate for a particular application of the invention. This provision of a separately fabricated glass holder makes it possible to provide plate-and-glass assemblies which: (1) have the advantages of those disclosed in the '737 patent, but (2) do not require the specially designed plate-with-holder components of the latter. Instead, the novel glass holders disclosed in the parent application allow one to use conventional plates in the plate-and-glass assembly. This has the advantage that the plate can be made of cellulosic and other materials which would perhaps be impractical if the integrated plate-and-glass holder approach disclosed in the '737 patent were employed. Also, the separately fabricated holder gives plate manufacturers an inexpensive entree into the plate-and-glass assembly field.
Separate glass holders of the character disclosed in the just-discussed related application have the disadvantage that it is comparatively expensive to mold these components from plastics, and polymers are often the material of choice. Also, available cups--6, 8, and 12 ounce, for example--differ in diameter at their open, upper ends. This requires that a different glass holder, and therefore different mold, be made available for each different cup size. As a consequence of the foregoing, glass holders as disclosed in the parent application may be too expensive to be used with plates which are non-disposable.
This disadvantage with one-piece glass holders may be overcome by the provision of a triangular array of inexpensive, easily fabricated and applied glass holder components referred to as wedges (see the parent application No. 07/870,392). The spacing of such wedges may be adjustable to allow cups of different sizes to be accommodated.
Additionally, the parent application Ser. No. 07/870,392 recognized the need to accommodate currently-popular insulated plastic containers provided for soft drinks and other beverages. Providing caps having a peripheral recess for these insulated containers allows these containers to be attached to a plate having a glass holder as described in the above-mentioned patent and patent applications filed by the present Applicants. Specifically, this peripheral recess engages the glass holder wedge array of application Ser. No. 07/870,392, the locking component of application Ser. No. 07/832,436, and the integral locking mechanism of the '737 patent.
The parent application also recognized that a straw port may be formed in the side of the cap of the insulated container. The parent application thus provided an apparatus having: (a) a first straw located within the cup and extending through the straw port; and (b) a second straw that mates with the first straw and extends around the plate to allow access to the user. This allowed the user to drink from the container without removing it from the plate.
The wedges provided by the parent application have the disadvantage that they require the separate steps of arranging the wedges in the correct positions on the underside of a plate holder and then adhering the wedges to the plate at these correct positions. They also require a separate injection molding process with attendant molds therefor. Consequently, the costs of manufacturing a plate having a glass holder formed on the underside thereof may be too expensive to be used and then disposed of.
Further, the provision of a straw port in the side of the cap of an insulated container as disclosed in the parent application requires an unwieldy two-straw system: one primarily inside and protruding from the insulated container and one outside the insulated container. This complicates the assembly of the glass and straw to the plate and leaves a hole in the cap through which fluid may leak during transportation.